"Whether it’s Greek, Arabic or Cantonese, her staff has to be adept at things as complex as medical translation and as simple as knowing when to use eye contact."
As the country gets more diverse, hospitals are getting savvy, hiring people who understand patients’ cultural needs on top of their medical needs. Even big time medical schools like Penn, Harvard and UCSF are getting hip to this concept, changing their curriculum to include cultural training. Youth Radio’s Alyssa Wagner describes how these days, college graduates without strictly science backgrounds are breaking into the medical industry because their mastery of chemistry and biology may be less important than their ability to translate and help patients overcome cultural barriers.
I tell anyone who will listen, that I want to be a nurse. When people find out that I've been majoring in Chicano/Latino studies - I get some pretty funny looks. But cultural competency is one of the new buzzwords in medicine. Take the University of California at Davis, where I go to school.
Ambi (on tape)
Good afternoon Chicano and Chicana studies this is Leti...
This is the Chicano Studies department. It's on the other side of campus from the medical school. But professor Adela de la Torre is bridging the gap by planning a new school of public health that incorporates cultural competency.
Torre (on tape)
It means recognizing that when you enter into a patient encounter that you are not the expert in every domain, that there is an opportunity to learn. If you understand the cultural background, the lifestyle of your patient, you can better treat your patient.
Dorcas Walton is a chief nurse executive at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Oakland, California.
Walton (on tape)
We can have as many as 40 some languages spoken on one of our floors. It brings an international house here all the time.
Whether it's Greek, Arabic or Cantonese, her staff has to be adept at things as complex as medical translation and as simple as knowing when to use eye contact.
Walton (on tape)
One culture you're allowed to look in the eye, and another culture says no, that's disrespectful. We have to teach staff how to care for the variety of patients they're taking care of.
The latest census data shows 39 percent of Californians speak another language besides English at home. It's part of a larger trend nationwide. Professor Yvette Flores, who introduced cultural competency to me in her psychology class, describes her "aha" moment. It came when she was an undergrad doing mental health work with migrant Mexican families.
Flores (on tape) and it seemed ludicrous to me that I was hired as a Mexican family expert when I was 18 years old and I was not Mexican and I had one course in psychology. That definitely shaped not only the kind of psychologist I became but also the courses that I teach. Courses like mental health, psychological perspectives on the family, and of course on Chicano psychology. I also teach humanities in medicine.
Humanities in Medicine? It may sound strange, but Flores argues that's where it's all headed. I hope she's right, as I get ready to graduate and use my BA in Chicano Studies to transition into a nursing career.
